There have been Super Bowls with insane comebacks (New England over Atlanta, Super Bowl LI), with stunning upsets (the Jets over Baltimore in Super Bowl III, the Giants over the Patriots in XLII), games decided by inches (St. Louis over Tennessee, Super Bowl XXXIV), or by a field goal missed by centimeters (Buffalo losing to the Giants, Super Bowl XXV), or by three successful kicks (the first three championships of the New England dynasty).
But no Super Bowl came close to the roller coaster of Super Bowl XLIX, played on February 1, 2015, between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots — the same two teams meeting again tonight (1:30 a.m. Israel time) in the Super Bowl in Santa Clara, California.
New England arrived at that game after a decade without a Super Bowl title. It had lost twice on the game’s biggest stage to the New York Giants and had lost the swagger — loosely translated, a winning self-confidence bordering on stylish arrogance — that once defined head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady.
Seattle came in as the favorite: it boasted one of the greatest defenses in history, dubbed the “Legion of Boom,” and a year earlier had humiliated the Denver Broncos, led by Peyton Manning — then the league’s best offense and one of the greatest ever — in a 43–8 Super Bowl rout. And the result everyone expected? It wasn’t supposed to be close.
The game shattered viewership records (a peak of 120 million viewers), remains the fourth most-watched television program of all time (not just in sports), and was ranked eighth on the list of the greatest football games ever. The average ticket sold for more than $8,000 — three times the price of the previous Super Bowl, while premium tickets exceeded $28,000. A single minute of advertising sold for $9 million.
That night in Arizona did not disappoint. Seattle jumped out to a 10-point lead in the third quarter. Tom Brady then led the Patriots to 14 straight points and a four-point advantage as Seattle got the ball for the final drive. With 2:02 left, New England led 28–24. The ball was on Seattle’s 20-yard line. Just like in its two Super Bowl losses to the Giants, once again the Patriots allowed a miraculous catch: this time Jermaine Kearse beat rookie cornerback Malcolm Butler and hauled in the ball while lying on his back, a 33-yard gain. With 1:05 left, the ball was on New England’s five-yard line. The Seahawks needed a touchdown to win. They had four downs to get it.
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Patriots-Seahawk face each other in the Superbowl in 2015
(Photo: AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
Marshawn Lynch took the handoff and plowed ahead for four yards. Twenty-six seconds left. Lynch was the heart of Seattle’s offense. He had scored more rushing touchdowns than any running back in the league that season and had been unstoppable in this game as well, averaging more than four yards per carry. Now he had three chances to gain one yard. Seattle still had a timeout and could stop the clock if Lynch was tackled. But the Seahawks’ coaching staff instructed Russell Wilson to throw. Butler read the play and intercepted the pass, stealing the game. Commentators competed over which superlative to give Seattle’s final decision. The consensus: it was the worst coaching decision in the history of football.
(Robert) Kraft work
Seattle never recovered from that moment. New England returned to the Super Bowl in three of the next four seasons and won twice. This time, the Patriots are back on the game’s biggest stage for the first time since 2019, aiming to add a seventh title to the franchise’s legacy. Needless to say, this is a very different team from the dynasty that won six championships.
The question that always hovered over that dynasty was who deserved the most credit. Belichick, the brilliant and irascible coach, was long seen as the mastermind — a football savant who borrowed concepts from Eastern warfare doctrines to outmaneuver opponents. But his post-Brady years were dismal, both in New England and at the University of North Carolina. Brady, by contrast, moved to Tampa Bay and won the Super Bowl in his very first season there. Advantage: Brady.
New England gave Belichick four more years before thanking him for six Lombardi Trophies and showing him the door. The Patriots then turned to former player Jerod Mayo as head coach, only to fire him after a single season of four wins and 13 losses. This summer, they hired another former Patriot, Mike Vrabel, who was named Coach of the Year after leading the team to a 14–3 record and a Super Bowl berth.
It takes a special set of qualities to admit a mistake and dismiss Mayo after just one year. As a player, he won a Super Bowl with New England. But the organization quickly realized he was not the right man to maximize the years of Drake Maye as the franchise quarterback. And it also takes special qualities to bring in Vrabel, who had not held a significant coaching role since being fired by Tennessee — to recognize that Vrabel, who won the Patriots’ first three championships as a player, could restore the spirit of the franchise.
If Vrabel leads the Patriots to a title tonight, it will underscore that neither Brady nor Belichick was the most important piece of the dynasty. It was the spirit of the organization. And the man responsible for that spirit is owner Robert Kraft.
Maya Avrahami adds from Boston: Tom Brady? Who’s Tom Brady? Brady, who once declared himself “a Patriot for life,” said this week that he is not rooting for either team in the Super Bowl — a statement that should have sparked outrage in the city. But no one cared. The iPhone temperature read minus six degrees Celsius, with a real feel of minus 14, yet hundreds of men and women of all ages were unfazed. They walked around in short sleeves bearing signs that read: “I love Drake Maye.”
A sign outside a restaurant in Little Italy, rising above knee-high snow, proclaimes: “The Super Bowl is coming home.” The television screens, billboards, shop windows — everything belongs to the Patriots. University professors promised that if New England wins, all Monday classes will be canceled.
“Boston is a sports city. Every season has its team,” the owner of De Vino restaurant told me. “Red Sox in spring and fall, Celtics and Bruins in the summer. Now it’s Patriots time.”